In efforts aimed at supporting a delivery network that is increasingly being taxed by the COVID-19 induced fueled online shopping, United Parcel Service Inc said, it will be hiring 100,000 workers for the winter holiday shopping season.

UPS, the world’s biggest package delivery company, plans on hiring the same number of seasonal holiday helpers as it did last year. It expects this 2020’s peak season to extend from October to January, a month longer than it did in 2019, with retailers prepping up for their earliest-ever kickoff.

Best Buy, Target and Kohl’s have moved up their winter holiday promotions to October. They join rival Walmart in announcing store closures on Thanksgiving and plans to bypass the midnight Black Friday door-buster sales that traditionally mark the start of the holiday shopping crush but which now poses COVID-19 risks of infections.

FedEx Corp, UPS, and DHL have since March been inundated with demand for package deliveries with COVID-19 wary shoppers wary of purchasing from brick-and-mortar retail stores.

During the second quarter, average daily volume for the domestic package unit at UPS was 21.1 million, more than 91% of what it was during the fourth-quarter holiday peak. This is against a volume of 17.2 million in the second quarter of 2019.

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